Fug ro’s Blue Essence® co mplete s wor ld’s firs t fu lly remote offshore

w ind ROV inspe ctio n

The world’s first fully remote inspection of of fshore wind farm assets has been successfully carried out by Fugro, using one of its Blue Essence® uncrewed sur face vessels (USVs) with Blue Volta®, an electrical remotely operated vehicle (eROV) The inspection at the Aberdeen of fshore wind farm in the Nor th Sea (also known as the European Of fshore Wind Deployment Centre) was jointly funded by Vattenfall and Of fshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult This par tnership gives innovators in the of fshore wind supply chain the oppor tunity to test and prove technologies in real-world conditions to suppor t innovation in operations and maintenance Blue Essence® is the first USV to receive approval from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to operate fully remotely with an eROV and under take sur veys in UK waters The eROV, which was remotely launched and recovered from Fugro’s remote operations centre (ROC) in Aberdeen, delivered a number of inspections on the structure of the wind turbines to assess their stability and safety A detailed map of the seabed was also created using data gathered from a deepwater multibeam echosounder sensor mounted on the hull of the vessel The acquired Geo-data was accessed in real-time, allowing Vattenfall to make quick decisions about their asset maintenance programme. Blue Essence® forms par t of Fugro’s wider strategy towards more uncrewed operations for greater agility, safety and sustainability; the vessel can spend up to two weeks executing inspection activities at sea without refuelling resulting in a 95 % r e d u c t i o n i n c a r b o n e m i s s i o n s compared to conventional ROV suppor t vessels

H å k a n B o r g s t r ö m , D e p u t y D i r e c t o r, O&M Product Line, Offshore Wind at Vattenfall said: “This is a technology that could signify a real step for ward for the i n d u s t r y, p a r t i c u l a r l y f r o m a s a f e t y p e r s p e c t i v e - r e d u c i n g t h e n e e d t o deploy teams offshore, with sur vey work i n s t e a d a b l e t o b e m a n a g e d f r o m o n s h o r e A s p r o j e c t s b e c o m e increasingly far out to sea, this will also m e a n s i g n i f i c a n t l y l o w e r c a r b o n e m i s s i o n s w h i c h i s a v i t a l p a r t o f Vattenfall’s mission to deliver fossil-free living within a generation ”

Nick Simmons, Fugro’s USV and Remote Working Director for Europe and Africa said: “This is a landmark moment for offshore operations and demonstrates how remote technologies are bringing significant benefits to the offshore wind industr y Our USVs can be operated from our global network of ROCs, allowing us to deliver faster and more sustainable inspection and geophysical ser vices from onshore locations, which are also much safer for crew than the offshore environment ” www fugro com

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